How to Arrange Kitchen Cupboards

Properly organizing your cupboards will help you use your kitchen more efficiently.

Organizing your kitchen so that items you use frequently are close at hand will help you use your cooking, baking and cleaning time more efficiently. The organization process also can help you gain more usable space in your cupboards. Use a pencil-drawn sketch of your kitchen or make a more formal diagram on your computer, and then decide the best place for everything so you can make the best use of your cabinet and counter space.

Instructions

1. Sketch out a basic diagram of your cupboards, or use PowerPoint or a similar program to create the diagram on your computer.

2. Look inside your cupboards and determine if you have a lot of dead space that could be made more useful with ready-made or custom-made shelves, shelves with built-in bins or lazy Susans. Buy the organizing units you need.

3. Think about which items and small appliances you use least frequently. Note those in pencil on your diagram for your upper cupboards and on upper shelves of cupboards.

4. Think about which items you use the most in the oven and on the stove, and pencil those on your diagram in the cupboards closest to these appliances for easy accessibility.

5. Note on your diagram to place dishes and cups in cupboards near the dishwasher, if possible, to make putting away clean loads easier. Since dishes and cups are used frequently, place them on easily accessible lower shelves of upper cabinets.

6. Place food items in cupboards on your diagram away from the stove and oven to avoid heat damage. It's a good idea to use tiered shelves or lazy Susans in these cabinets as food items placed in the back of large cupboards are often hard to see and therefore forgotten. Pull-out shelving also achieves the same visibility.

7. Pull everything out of your cabinets. Then refill them according to your diagram.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't want to make a paper diagram, you can adhere sticky notes to the outside of cupboards to designate which items go where.

• Make sure to take this time to give away any appliances and cooking utensils you no longer use. Also throw out food and spices that have passed their shelf life.

References

• University of Nebraska: Kitchen Mini Makeovers
• Org Junkie: Organizing Kitchen Cabinets in Just a Couple of Hours

Resources

• Ohio State University: Cupboard Storage Chart
• Purdue Extension: Spotlight on Cupboard Storage